Tendency Tones
by nearsightedness
Summary: Hisana is not one to give up. ByaHisa, written for bleach15 at LJ.


Written for bleach15 at LJ.

**Title:** Tendency Tones  
**Author:** Norrowa  
**Pairing/Characters:** Byakuya, Hisana, light Hisana/Byakuya  
**Rating:** G  
**Warnings:** Well, first off, because Hisana's only part in Bleach is as a memory and a photograph, my interpretation of her is largely made from scratch. Apart from that, no real warnings.  
**Word Count:** 1532  
**Author's Note:** Written for my ByaHisa claim at bleach15, prompt 11, "standing to defend you".

There was a tense edge to the murmured conversations—something beneath the inconsequential small talk. The scene was, to Byakuya, a more than familiar one: the room, with its high ceilings and smooth wooden surfaces and expensive furniture; the people, in their fine colourful robes and their fine frozen expressions. He was acutely aware of Hisana's presence at his elbow, short and strange and somehow exotic with her natural expressions and curious eyes—exotic, and not wholly in a comfortable way. Byakuya was doubly aware of the silence that lay heavily between them. The right conversational machete eluded him, not that he was looking.

"Kuchiki-dono!" The voice was faint, but unmistakable in its saccharine tones. Byakuya turned to see Kouda cutting through the crowds like a shark scenting blood. The red embroidery of Hisana's kimono seemed criminally vivid in Byakuya's peripheral vision.

Kouda was a broad-shouldered man with a soft nose and small, shrewd eyes, handsome, perhaps, in his own blurry, opulent way. His lips were curled into a predator's leer, his gaze flickering from Byakuya to Hisana and back again. "Kouda-san," said Byakuya stiffly. The man was a minor noble and a major annoyance, and Byakuya preferred not to deal with him.

"I see you have brought a guest with you..." Kouda trailed off delicately, then said, in an oily voice, "Such a pretty face, and unfamiliar too."

Byakuya opened his mouth to reply, but Hisana cut in. "I'm Hisana," she said flatly. Looking at her out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she had fixed Kouda with that fierce blue stare of hers.

"Hisana...?"

"Hisana," she repeated. The tone of her voice said, quite clearly, _is there a problem with that?_ Byakuya would have wished that he hadn't let her come with him, except he knew that it was futile. She was at the gathering now, and all he could do was try to minimize the damage. Why she had even wanted to attend a gathering of nobles—those she so often disparaged—was beyond him. "I'm from Rukongai." She tossed it out like a challenge, but Kouda's only response was to raise an eyebrow. Then he turned to Byakuya, who could see Hisana bristle at his cool dismissal.

"So, Kuchiki-dono, you've taken to bringing girls from Rukongai to social gatherings?" said Kouda, his smirk broadening. "I—"

"Actually," interrupted Hisana. Byakuya groaned—inwardly, of course. "I was the one who insisted on coming." Her voice was quiet, but hot with anger. "I assure you, _Kuchiki-dono_ was in fact quite opposed to the idea. Tell me, do you have a problem with someone being from Rukongai? I assure you, it's not a contagious condition." She plowed straight on, ignoring Byakuya's cold glare and Kouda's shocked, offended stare. "I would ask you to pardon my presumption, except I do know for a fact that it is what you were thinking, just like all of you nobles—well. Almost all."

Then Kouda broke in. "Kuchiki-dono," he said, and Hisana's eyes narrowed then, her anger, instead of exploding in a whirlwind of scorching heat and roaring fire, seeming to narrow and sharpen into something like the sneer that curled her lips, something like a knife. "It was quite pleasant talking to you." His tone was blooming with sarcasm, and the many labyrinthine interpretations of his words (it was quite pleasant talking to _you_; it was quite pleasant talking to you or it would have been if your Rukongai whore hadn't been so loud and rude; and on) were not lost on Byakuya. He was not the sort of man to hope for anything—if he wanted something he ensured that it was done—but as it was, Byakuya hoped, fervently, that Hisana did not interrupt. She didn't, but it gave him scant satisfaction.

"Kouda-san," said Byakuya for the second time, inclining his head. Kouda nodded, shot a final disgusted look at Hisana, then turned on his heel and strode off.

The silence was white and glittering and frozen, but Byakuya had little respect for it. "So," he said finally. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't sever all ties with you now... or, for that matter, have you punished."

"For what?"

"You do realize the sort of rumours he will spread—not just about you, but _anything_ to slander me. You embarrassed him and therefore, as far as he's concerned, I humiliated him."

"And you're trying to get me to believe that you care?" At that, Byakuya glanced over at her, surprised but not showing it (that was how it always went). Her gaze was fierce. "You don't _care_, Kuchiki Byakuya. Don't think I haven't noticed that. You'll just let them walk all over you, slander you, gossip about you behind your back, hate you, and you don't _care_!" Her voice rose, sliding upwards in pitch and volume into the plaintive realm of those who didn't understand. It was as though her voice was mimicking her mind's attempt to jump over the wall between them. Then it was normal again. "Well you know what, Kuchiki-_dono_? I _do_ care."

"About me."

"Yes."

"You shouldn't. It's not as though—"

"It's not as though _what?_ I'm wasting my time? It's not as though I'm going to get anywhere? No. No. I'm not wrong about you, Kuchiki Byakuya. You're not like all the other nobles. You're _not_. If you were, you wouldn't have helped me. I'm not wrong."

"You refuse to be wrong."

"Yes. I will make myself right, because you know, that's something you learn in Rukongai—you can't be wrong, and you have to do _everything_ you can to be right, and I think that's something you nobles just don't learn!" She paused, took a deep breath. Byakuya watched her, silent and with the gravity he gathered around him like a cloak pressing him down into himself so he couldn't speak or move. Not that he wanted to. "Are you thinking, then, Kuchiki-_dono_, that I won't be _able_ to do anything? You're wrong again. In Rukongai, you can't afford to fail either, and I won't. I am going to stand to protect you, and nobody will be able to knock me down—and that includes you. I will not be wrong. I will not fail. Not agai—"

Her words had started to jumble together; she spoke faster and faster, her voice lowering in its intensity. Byakuya watched her eyes; they were pretty eyes, blue and fixed on him with some deep intent he couldn't read. Was that regret? Guilt? Determination? Anger? He couldn't read her emotions, he couldn't read emotions at all, never had been able to and never would be able to. She broke off, an abrupt ending, as though the path she had been hurtling down had just plunged her into a void.

"I will stand to protect you," Hisana repeated slowly, her voice shaking now, "and nobody, including you, will be able to tear me down."

Then she turned and left. She didn't run; her paces were slow and measured. Byakuya had told her earlier that she could leave whenever she wanted, but he had not expected her to choose that option. He knew, though, in the same deep-seated way he knew that one plus one was two, and that he could not just ignore Yoruichi because she was a Shihouin and therefore one of the few people on par with him, and that he was a Kuchiki and therefore had his duties and obligations—he knew, in that deep-seated way, that she would return.

_Nothing will be able to tear me down._

"Stupid girl," Byakuya murmured, with no rancour, no emotion at all. She was a fool, and she had besmirched his name, and he should be angry with her but he—

_You don't care._

What was it then that drew her to him so? What was it that had caused her to sink her roots by him, to protect _him_? Byakuya did not understand her and he knew that and he knew that she knew that—he did not understand her desperate need, he did not understand the self-disgust he thought he saw sometimes in her face, he did not understand the anger he sometimes heard in her voice. Had it been his stray gesture of kindness? Was it, perhaps, his gravity—was she drawn to him by his gravity (Byakuya had always enjoyed the dual meaning of that word, and how it could be used)? What was it? _I will not be wrong. I will stand to protect you._

It was a foolish sentiment. Laughable. Ridiculous. But as he turned to greet another noble who was walking up, a fawning smile and honey-coated tones, Byakuya realized, and the realization sent a chilling thrill through him, like looking down into an abyss...

... he realized that, one day, he might very well find that state of affairs to be satisfactory.


End file.
